If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

This movie is pretty inaccurate. While the VISIBLE universe is limited, humans cannot see beyond A point not because there is nothing else beyond that point, but simply because that part of space is moving away from us at faster than the speed of light (78 billion light years is simply the upper limit of the search space of this study; it has no physical significance). There is little evidence that the universe ends after the visible area (called the Hubble volume) of it, or after 78 billion light years. Current understanding (as of 2007) involves a general consensus among many astronomers that the universe does indeed extend beyond the Hubble limit, though to what degree is impossible to say.

HUBBLE VOLUME/ LIMIT:
“light emitted at the present time by objects outside the Hubble limit could never be seen by an observer on the Earth. In other words, the Hubble limit would define the cosmological event horizon for us. If, as is inferred from current observations, the expansion of the universe is in fact accelerating, then even some objects within the Hubble limit will never be observed (by us) as they are today.”

Im sorry but that video and attatched links are simply a piece of BAD astronomy and nothing more, besides being a good reflection on the scale of the universe. EVen then, this video actually DIMINISHES the sense of scale of the universe by artificially limiting it.

I agree with finch, what we are seeing is light that is 78 billion years old (according to that video). Older than the earth, the earth is supposedly 4.5 billion years old. those planets we have seen have probably gone by now.